Travelled with RSD to Nepal in June
Travelled with RSD to Nepal in June. Very good holiday, saw lots of interesting places, guide was superb and hotels were of a good standard. I would recommend the RSD holiday to Nepal
RSD Travel has mixed reviews from customers. Customers particularly appreciate great value and service, though some mention concerns about customer service and expensive.
Travelled with RSD to Nepal in June. Very good holiday, saw lots of interesting places, guide was superb and hotels were of a good standard. I would recommend the RSD holiday to Nepal
I have travelled with RSD a few times and have never had a bad experience. An excellent way of seeing a country at an affordable price.
Went to Sri Lanka with RSD - fantastic countryside, amazing friendly people, good hotels and an amazing journey around the country in all its guises - one of the best trips of my life (I travel 10 mths a year) - why so good - people, no hassles of any kind going out, low cost economy, wonderful weather - an absolute gem of a holiday full of variety with something for everyone.
We had a wonderful holiday seeing so many UNESCO sites in Kosova, North Macedonia, Montenegro & Albania. Except for the last one, which was a little bit "Soviet era", the hotels were lovely with excellent food, very comfortable indeed. Our Turkish guide Gdoikca went above & beyond to help all passengers on her coach, even rescuing a hearing aid, which had fallen out in Cafe Mozart in Budva, Montenegro & organising for someone to drive it to our hotel at least 2 hours away so we had it before the coach left next morning.
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Just book with someone else..price may seem higher initially but trust me it's not .. This trip was my first with rsd to Croatia and a coachful off people have complained.. I'm not sure how they can charge £240 each person seasonal supplement has no one open..until 1st June..I notice rsd travel only reply to good reviews ..they have a coachful of folk still here in Azul hotel..who are not happy.
Date of experience: May 7, 2023
I gave 1 star only because I had to to continue to the comments page, otherwise I do not rate RSD at all. I am sat here in my 4* luxury resort room on the last week of my Croatian culture trip. What a joke. Treated to pressure sales at gold, carpet and leather factories on the cultural tour the first week spoilt what had started off as a wonderful experience. Dropped of at the supposedly 4* resort where we are to relax and enjoy the facilities. What facilities ? The resort advertises 8 swimming pools and 12 restaurants and bars. Only 1 buffet style restaurant is open, 1 lobby bar and 1 indoor swimming pool. No lounges on the beach or around the pools as they are closed. Not enough outside seating for guests. The room is very basic and aged. Outside my balcony I am looking at 3 small pools that are filled dirty stagnant water and surrounding by security tape. Complained to the management of the resort and our tour group had a meeting with him. He explained that the resort is not fully open until May 10 which is the day we return to the UK. He also explained that back in November 2022 RSD were given full details of what was available at the resort at this time of year. RSD still chose to leave us here knowing what the resort had to offer. We were not given any information about where we would be staying on the last week of our tour until the day before we were left here by RSD. Our tour guide assured us that we would get 4* plus treatment so because of this we paid extra for the gourmet food and unlimited drink package. The food is plentiful but no way would you class it as gourmet. The bar is very small and has a limited choice of drinks and only have tins of beer. Apparently according to reception the resort is full. Yes full of RSD customers. Buses are still dropping people off. The resort is basically closed and they cleaning the pools getting them ready for next week. We have nothing to do and very little outside the resort. No entertainment, you can pay 10 euros to join a quiz, yippee.To go to the nearest town it is 10 euro each way by taxi, the only form of transport or you can walk along the beach which will take 45 minutes to get there. To say I am disappointed is an understatement and will never book with RSD again.
Date of experience: May 3, 2023
Great value for money and you get exactly what is described in the brochure. RSD charter flights with Freebird, some disruption in Antalya for the onward flights (but no fault of RSD), and an English speaking guide on arrival in Cyprus. 4 star hotel for the 1st week, with buffet breakfast - optional evening buffet (which we declined) and ate out locally. Great value and easy to find local restaurants. Great choice of included tours, with the obligatory visits to a leather, carpet and jewellery factory - all known about in advance, but still very pushy ! Tour guide was ok, but obviously on commission for sales of optional tours, food packages and purchases at outlets. 2nd week relaxing at a 5 star hotel on the beach, breakfast included. A very busy hotel, but plenty of room to sunbathe around the pools and beach areas. Optional evening meal and drinks package, which we again declined - ate out to support local businesses. Overall very good value. A lovely holiday experience, lovely scenery, great friendships, - but read the brochure carefully to ensure you know what you are signing up to, and you won't be disappointed.
Date of experience: April 28, 2023
Have been 5 times with RSD and have found all travel has been well organised and educational. I will walk through what it would pay you to read. First when you get information about the holiday, read the small print. This will explain important points such as whether suitable for someone with mobility issues or not. The basic cost of the holiday usually covers flights, hotel and breakfast. Then there are extra costs such as an evening meal which can be paid in advance or on the trip. If there is a second week in a hotel to rest, then you can pay extra for an evening meal, or pay for full board, which may include free drinks. If you have not paid before the holiday you will be encouraged to buy the evening meals (gourmet package). Usually there are limited places to buy local food and this is what tour guides will say. Some people feel a pressure to buy the package on holiday but if you don't want it just say NO THANK YOU. There is no offence taken by tour guides. It is your holiday and your decision. Some holiday makers think that elderly people are pressurised to buy, but as I have said it is your decision. If you do not take the evening meal it will mean walking to a supermarket, which may be sparse and there may not be a restaurant very near. So your decision if you want to walk and get food. Many hotels do not have tea and coffee facilities so bring your own plug in travel kettle, tea, coffee, dried milk, sugar, if you want this. There are always optional things to pay for, but these are usually only known about on the trip e.g. a hot air balloon ride in Turkey, a day trip to Albania from Montenegro, a trip to Kruger Safari Park, 2023 figures about an extra £50/£60. Again these are purely optional. One thing RSD travels do is stop at huge warehouses to visit a leather factory, a jewellery shop, carpet factory. You are not obliged to buy anything, but there are some good bargains and all high quality goods. Some people will buy and these visits subsidise the trips, I have been told, but not 100% sure if this is true but makes sense. I would highly recommend RSD travel, but a holiday for £249 in Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia Herzogovina, cost in reality £699 approx with bed and breakfast and evening meal and the day trip to Albania and extra snacks. The single supplement was about £299 for 2 weeks. I should mention most hotels are 4 star. Also a tour guide on the bus are very knowledgeable and when you visit some sites you often have a local guide at no cost. There is usually water on board to buy in bottles. The coach makes stops for toilets as they do not use the coach toilet as it would get smelly. If you need to stop then just ask, though rare for that necessity. There is also a supplement from some airports and costs vary according to the time of year. The RSD holidays are usually Spring and Autumn. Also some hotels have a daily supplement to pay. I hope you enjoy your RSD holiday, you'll meet some very interesting people and learn loads. I do recommend writing a diary to remind yourself of the wonderful places you visit and take lots of photos - with 'location' switched on your phone. Happy holidays.
Date of experience: April 23, 2023
Well I can see why this holiday may not be everyones 'cup of tea' (living out of a suitcase in the first week tour) but I had a great tour and holiday with RSD to Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro and thought it was incredible value for money! The organisation could not be faulted. Straight off the plane to be met and immediately stepped onto an allocated coach with a guide and driver whom we then had for the full week of the cultural tour. On this week we moved from hotel to hotel in different areas of Croatia, crossing into Bosnia and eventually Montenegro - 3 countries visited. On main stops we were flawlessly guided to the local guide who showed us round their towns letting us see and hear about local landmarks and history - and the guides were interesting, funny and clear. All hotels we stayed in, both on the tour and the 2nd week holiday were fabulous, beautiful and spotless - even those who moaned couldn't fault them - though I realise that RSD use a lot of different hotels so our experience may be slightly different to other travelers. Our only slight issue was meals in these fabulous hotels which were at best luke warm but were edible and sustainable - to me this is a hotel problem not an rsd fault and I think it may be a country wide thing re the food - who knows. What I do know is that I felt safe and happy and well catered for on this trip which, all totalled, probably cost me less than me taking 2 weeks in Cornwall with travel etc. We were worried as the literature said this trip could be cancelled if 30 people didn't book on - imagine our shock when, at Mcr airport, we realised the whole plane was on this trip! 4 coaches picked us up, 2 coaches went to our hotels, other coaches elsewhere, but we did stumble on some 'plane people' sometimes, briefly, in towns. Croatia is a beautiful country, Bosnia not so much - but where we stayed was excellent, and Montenegro also beautiful and will be the place to be seen once their tourism is established. Great holiday and experience.
Date of experience: April 21, 2023
Just returned from the 15 day cultural tour of Cyprus with RSD. This was the first package holiday I've been on for about 15 years; we usually just book everything ourselves but at RSD's price, it seemed too good an offer to miss. Firstly the cost: you will pay more than their incredibly low price. We paid a supplement for travelling in Match/April and extra for a Manchester flight. Also, there was another optional half-board package in the first 2 hotels and an all-inclusive package in the last hotel. All together, it came to £680 each which was still a very good price for what is included. The flights are by Freebird Airlines with flew from Manchester T2 with a luggage allowance of 20kg. You pay for food on the flight but water, tea or coffee is free. The first hotel we stayed in, during the coach tours was in Famagusta and the second in Kyrenia. Both were a little way out of the main town but had restaurants and bars around them. You may decide not to take the half-board package in these but you'd pay more eating out. The Famagusta hotel was "The Novel" and one in the Kyrenia was "The Altynkia Holiday Resort". Both hotels were fine if a little limited in food choices. The Altynkia was really cosy and had a very pleasant lounge to sit in the evening. The final hotel was "The Salamis Bay Conti". This was a long way out of Famagusta town and it was worth paying for the all-inclusive package. The hotel is a bit soulless but the buffet food was excellent with loads of choices and there was a nice coffee bar and patisserie if that wasn't enough. The tours in the first week were very good and we had an excellent guide Deniz. Yes, you get taken to factory outlets on 2 of the days but I've had this on package tours of Turkey from operators charging a lot more than RSD. So overall, I would have no hesitation in recommending this tour. However, be aware the hotels are randomly allocated so you may not get the same ones as I've described. A brief conversation at the airport with other groups, seems to indicate the hotels were all of similar quality.
Date of experience: April 17, 2023
We’ve now experienced RSD for the first time and it’s only fair to leave a balanced review. There are already lots of reviews on Trustpilot but this is mine. Extremely disappointing selection of food for breakfast & dinner at the majority of hotels.. particularly the 2nd week hotel, Azul in Montenegro. The food is only lukewarm .. never hot. Pork, pork and more pork Fish offering us extremely disappointing- trout which has been gutted and then hacked into 2 pieces. No thought for presentation. Definitely not 4 star Zero ice cream Repetitive selection of small cake pieces- very boring Zero hot chocolate Easter Monday - no orange juice Coffee machine not working Friday/Sat/Sunday- no draught beer - only very cheap canned lager beer. Family room ok apart from lack of comfortable seating Had to pay 15 euros for a kettle Friendly staff Expensive 10 euro per session extra curricular entertainment Nothing included on an all inclusive resort Bora, our guide during the 1st week, insisted that there were no restaurants within easy distance of the resort. One restaurant is actually approximately 50 yards from the Azul entrance. Lots of others in a short radius. Obviously not town centre but very different from the fear that he was spreading, He did use bullying tactics to get fellow travellers to agree to the fully inclusive package. He never stopped reminding people to visit cash machines for the extra payments that he needed from us after such tactics. Our driver, Borge, was superb. Safe driving and as smooth as possible. Very helpful with the masses of luggage being moved everyday. The cultural tour during the first week was interesting and informative- we did have some wonderful local guides BUT it does get very samey after you’ve visited so many churches with basically the same history. The carpet, leather, jewellery visits are tiresome but I can understand the need for these to keep the holiday cost lower. Whilst they are all pushy sales guys, they soon understand when you don’t want to buy and move onto more easy pickings. JUST SAY NO! RSD should explain that the star rating is not referring to the quality of the hotel but the number features offered. Quality is not assured. The interminable delays at the border are something to bear in mind. I reckon we have wasted 5 hours just sat waiting whilst the border guards process bus after bus as slowly as possible… obviously not the fault of RSD but be prepared for this type of frustrating delay. You have been warned! On the return trip to Dubrovnik for the final night , it was quite simply a waste of an entire day on a bus. The hotel for the final evening was absolutely fabulous… if only we could have experienced this throughout the tour. It’s the first time that we’ve been on holiday and actually looked forward to returning home! EDIT : RSD have replied by snail mail and suggested that they will do their best to improve things.
Date of experience: April 13, 2023
This was our second RSD trip. First Nov 2022 to Cappadocia and April 2023 to North Cyprus. We have been blessed with 2 brilliant tour guides: Kadir in Turkey and Yusuf in Cyprus. Both very knowledgeable, caring, helpful and instructive. Not pushy! We had early starts in the first week, visiting various sites: monasteries, churches, a mosque, the Ghost Village (very sad) and most enjoyable a village visit where we made bread, sampled the local produce of cheese, olive oil, carob syrup; and also able to view and meet some of the animals on the farm. We needed the second week in a superb beach hotel! The staff were outstanding, the all inclusive package included real cocktails (not just local ones).
Date of experience: April 12, 2023
Just back from a 2 week break in Cyprus, one of things on the plus side was only 2 stopovers. Both hotels were OK and our tour guide Deniz was brilliant. The second week the hotel was very good amenities were brilliant along with the food. On the down side it was a a large hotel and the dinner room felt like a cafeteria and you partly lost that camaraderie with your group. The biggest problem was the bar service,it would help I enormously if the tables were numbered so if its not the same waiter he/ she know which table to take the drinks to instead walking endlessly round and to end a bit training where necessary when someone orders a vodka and lemonade and a cognac they don't expect it too come in one class .
Date of experience: April 3, 2023
As a first experience of RSD, I'm a little conflicted. My partner and I went on the Croatia/Bosnia/Montenegro cultural tour with 7days free extension in a resort. So, the tour. Very hectic. You're out for 10 to 12 hours every day, different hotel every night with varying food standards. You don't get longer than 90 mins in each city you visit which is frustrating and disappointing. By day 5, I had had enough of being herded on and off the bus with no time to appreciate and revel in the surroundings. By day 6, nearly everyone felt the same. The last 2 days we visited 3 factories/warehouses (rugs, jewellery, and leather) where you are pounced upon and pressured to buy items. Bear in mind here that the tour guides get commission from sales. As soon as they know you're from the UK, prices are in the thousands because they have some weird view that we're millionaires over here. How a rug, or a leather jacket, can drop from 3600 to 400 is beyond me and just goes to show how much they try and scam people. The scary thing is, vulnerable people and those on their own do get caught out with this. We had one lady in our group who was taken into a room by 3 men. An hour later, she walked out having spent 9k on a necklace which she couldn't even take there and then! They promised to take her for lunch and bring the necklace 2 days later. She came back from lunch 25k lighter and still no necklace which was promised to her 2 days later on the day we left. Apart from all that, it was a long, hard slog in the first week but with the upcoming 7 days of relaxation in a 4* resort, I thought no problem, I can push through it to enjoy the luxury. How wrong I was. DO NOT, and I strongly mean DO NOT, buy the all inclusive package unless you plan to drink yourself into a stupor every night. The tour guide told us that our resort was in the middle of nowhere, nothing around, places shut because it's out of season, so we went for the all inclusive. EVERY DAY we both had diarrhoea. The food selection was shockingly appalling. Whatever wasn't eaten one day was reheated and served the next. They didn't label food properly - for example, scrambled eggs cooked with ham, but they were just labelled as scrambled eggs. Very bad if you're a veggie thinking you can enjoy some simple scrambled eggs. The food selection was the same every day - roast potatoes, mushy veg, and questionable meat. Pasta, salad, and that's it. However, right opposite the entrance to the resort was a beautiful restaurant that served the most mouth watering food we've ever had. If we had known, we'd have rather put the €460 in his pocket, a legitimate local business trying to survive, rather than the overpriced cr@p at the so called 4* resort. The room was...meh. Ants on the first night. A plastic sheet under the sheets on the bed which made sleeping rather tricky. I got bitten from head to foot by something in the bed (not my partner) and generally neither of us didn't sleep well all week. Croatia is beautiful so it was worth going for that, but please be aware that the cheap prices do come with a few cons.
Date of experience: March 23, 2023